Notes from the Kraken: March 27th 2016

Welcome again to We Have Always Lived in the Kraken, a pop culture blog transmitted directly to you from the belly of the beast. Here in the Notes we’ll show you this week’s posting schedule, but first, a little Seafood for Thought.

The madness is upon us!

Hey, I’m back after Kyu generously filled in for me these past two weeks. There has been so much since I have been gone. Normally I would talk about WonderCon, which just occurred and was a lot of fun, but instead you can check out the blog’s thoughts about WonderCon on Twitter and Instagram @insidethekraken. So what to do? Well, we are now currently experiencing the only other true time that pop culture and sports really collide during the year besides the Super Bowl, the NCAA Basketball Tournament. That’s right, March Madness is happening, and I am going to seize my only other opportunity to talk about sports on here at the Kraken.

So while the Super Bowl is a big deal because virtually everyone watches the game, March Madness does things a little differently. Everyone may not watch the games, but most people fill out a bracket, and communally enjoy all the twists and turns of the first couple of rounds. The upsets, the drama, and the bad broadcasters–March Madness is so much fun. Most people find most of their enjoyment in the first weekend, but I have always found that the best weekend for the tournament is the second one which covers the Sweet Sixteen through the Elite Eight. These are generally some of the more balanced match ups in the tournament, and often the fight to get to the Final Four is way more exciting than the Final Four itself. The teams start to get really serious, and at this point the quality of the games really improve. The first weekend is where most of the upsets and craziness happens, and the third weekend helps create a champion, but this middle weekend is when teams start to pack a punch, as they all realize the idea of being in the Final Four is now a distinct possibility. It’s a lot of fun, and is often just as compelling as anything else currently on television. The Final Four is fun and all, and well worth a watch, but it is during this middle weekend that contenders step up and pretenders fade away. March Madness is a magical time of college basketball for fans, one that uses sports to connect many of us together in office pools and upset-seeking fun, but one of these years, take the time to actually watch the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight games. They are well worth the watch, and who knows? You may find yourself being more of a sports fan than you ever realized.

David Robertson

From the depths of the Kraken, here is what we are bringing you this week.

Monday: Time for some more TV Roulette. This time David will be looking at HBO’s Vinyl. This show premiered to much fanfare, but has it been able to live up to expectations, or has it fallen short?

Wednesday: Nothing new today because we have to get the Kraken fitted for a suit, and you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find a tailor who can do a y̠̜’҉̤͉a̴̻̪̞͇i͙̟̣̖̣ͅ’̦n̷̻̜͎̺g͔̻͉̲̦̦̰͘’̮̠͍̜͇n̰̬͍̭̬̼̘g̦a͔h҉̤̼͙ -long.

Thursday: It has been a little while, but we are back with The Anticipated. This week David looks at Jeff Nichols’s Midnight Special. The super powered child genre has been waiting for someone like Nichols to make a movie with as little plot as possible. Wait, it hasn’t been? Well, we all got that movie anyhow, so let’s see what kind of magic Nichols can conjure this time.

Friday: No new content. The stars of the Milky Way galaxy have aligned and we’re trying to convince the Kraken not to devour them.

Saturday: Baturdays continues as we delve into Batman #2. This first story is a game of cat and mouse–and bat–and clown–look, there are a lot of factions here. It’s a tense, exciting story, cinematic as hell. Somebody call Chris Nolan.

Catch of the Week:

Each and every week the residents here in the Kraken will offer one recommendation for the week that we think you all would enjoy. It might be a movie. It might be a book. Who knows? This is your… Catch of the Week.

Kyu: My month of blog recommendations comes to an end, but instead of one rec this week, I’ll cover some of my other favorites. Tim O’Neill’s The Hurting talks engagingly about comics, music, and Magic: The Gathering. Jason Kotke aggregates interesting links and videos from around the internet. Eagles on Pogo Sticks is a nice little film and video game blog featuring friend of the Kraken Thirith. Finally, there’s one of this blog’s guiding stars, the “high culture and pop culture collide” site Overthinking It (where I was a key contributor on an exciting Law & Order research project), always interesting and worthwhile.

David: For this week, in honor of the imminent release of the new DC Animated Universe movie Justice League vs. Teen Titans, I would like to recommend the original Teen Titans cartoon from Cartoon Network. This is the cartoon that helped bring the members of the team (Robin, Raven, Starfire, Cyborg and Beast Boy) into the mainstream (most notably Cyborg, who is now a member of the Justice League in the current comics). Admittedly, this cartoon isn’t as easy to locate and watch as it should be, but it’s well worth it if you get the chance. If you can’t watch the original, Teen Titans Go! is a funny substitute that at least still has a lot of the same fun character interaction.

That’s it for this week. We hope you continue to find the Kraken to your liking. Please note that the restrooms on levels Four and Five are temporarily closed due to “anomalous phenomena.” Luckily, the bottomless pit has reopened after extensive research failed to find where anything anybody tossed in ever came out. It just goes to show, when God closes a toilet he opens a pit.